by Crowe (epub)
Above him, the crows took to the air, buffeting him with the wind from their wings. Saul watched them go and had just enough time to cover his head as the birds dive-bombed him. Forgetting his pickaxe, Saul tore across the field, the crows cawing and pecking at him as he ran. When he reached his coach, Saul flung open the door and ducked inside, slamming the door shut behind him. From inside, he listened as the crows landed on the top of the coach, their claws scratching on the roof.
“I’ve got to get out of here.”
Saul waited until dark, when he was sure that the family would be asleep. That would make it harder to spot the crows, if any had hung about. The scratching on the roof had stopped not long after sundown, but Saul had continued to wait until the moon was high overhead. Now that he had a plan, it wouldn’t pay to rush in and have it spoiled by a flock of birds. So, Saul waited, a malevolent grin on his face.
He opened the coach’s door just enough to poke his head out. The outside world was silent. Gaining confidence, Saul stepped out of the coach, a bundle of ropes and cords in his hands and a long knife clenched between his teeth. There was no sign of the crows. Closing the door of the coach as quiet as he could, Saul made his way up to the farmhouse.
He tied up the stepmother first, not wanting to take his chances with the big Irishwoman. In the commotion caused by the woman’s bellowing, Saul was able to slip in and do the Reverend next before the man of the house had time to register what was happening. He tiptoed to the girl’s room and pushed her door open enough to peek through the crack. He wasn’t surprised to see that her bed was empty. Saul gave the door a quick, hard shove and felt the wood smack into the girl standing behind it. Reaching around the door, he grabbed Anna Lee by the hair and dragged her into the kitchen to join the rest of the family. Saul released the girl with a shove, sending her tripping over her bound stepmother and sprawling across the kitchen floor.
“All right,” Saul said, pulling up a chair and seating himself so that he faced his captives, “where is it?”
“Where is what?” the Reverend asked.
Saul rolled his eyes and gave a theatrical sigh. “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way.”
“I’m only goin’ to ask you one more time. Where is the money?”
The Reverend stared at Mr. Samuels with the eye that hadn’t swollen shut. “I told you.”
Saul glanced over at the meager stash spread across the kitchen table. There was a little cash, what was left over from selling the last of the harvest along with what they had saved from the Reverend’s modest salary, the Irishwoman’s jewelry, and a few items that the girl had saved when her mother passed away. That was all. They were still holding out on the real fortune; Saul was sure of it.
Saul shook his head in disgust. “What about this?” He reached into his back pocket and produced the rolled up map, which he waved in front of the Reverend’s face.
“I have no idea what that is.”
Saul unrolled the map and held it under the Reverend’s nose. “What do you say now?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I do.” Saul sneered, taking back the map. “I know just what to say ---”
The paper was blank. Saul blinked, unbelieving.
“But…” Saul stammered. “It was a map…”
The family on the kitchen floor looked from one to another. They all understood the same thing; Saul Samuels had lost his mind.
“It was!” Saul screamed, shaking the paper in anger. “It was a map to the whole fortune!”
“I told you,” the Reverend said in his most soothing voice, “there is no buried fortune. Now, if you’ll just let us up ---”
Saul kicked out, the toe of his boot jabbing the Reverend in the ribs. “I know it’s here. It has to be. Where else would it be? The Washington fortune… the Lee’s…”
“The what?” the Irishwoman asked.
“Lee. Lee,” Saul said, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “As in ‘Anna Lee’.”
“Henderson,” Anna Lee said.
“Huh?” Saul had almost forgotten about the girl in his rage.
“Henderson,” she repeated. “Anna Lee Henderson.”
The realization of his error washed over Saul’s face. “You mean you folks aren’t related to General Lee?”
Anna Lee shook her head.
“George Washington?”
No one responded this time. They didn’t have to.
“And the map?” Saul unrolled the blank piece of paper once more. He released the paper, which rolled together from each end with a snap, and paced the floor. “I was duped! The man said it was a map! And the boy… Johnny ---”
“Johnny?” Anna Lee asked, her eyes wide. “Johnny Crowe?”
Saul stopped pacing and stared at her.
“Please,” she begged, “you seen Johnny Crowe?”
“Oh, yes,” Saul replied, an evil grin splitting his lips. “I seen him all right. In fact, last time I seen him he lay bleedin’ on the side of the road. Lynch mob was a comin’, so I didn’t stay ‘round long, but I seen him.”
Anna Lee began to cry. “No,” she said.
“Yes,” Saul said, crouching down on his hands and knees and getting in her face. “He was dyin’ when I left him. He ain’t comin’ home.”
Anna Lee was wracked with sobbing. “No!” she cried. “No, no, no!”
Saul pushed himself back to his feet. “That’s right,” he said. “Johnny said he was goin’ to come back here and marry you.” He enjoyed watching the girl wailing with grief. “Guess that ain’t goin’ to happen now.”
“Hush, child,” Irma said, rolling close to comfort Anna Lee. Saul grabbed the woman by the heels and dragged her away from the girl.
“The good news is that you don’t have to live as a spinster,” said Saul, grabbing Anna Lee under her arms and hoisting the girl to her feet. “You ain’t the prettiest flower in the garden, but you’ll do. I ain’t leavin’ here empty-handed.”
“Reverend,” Saul called out, “we’re in need of your services!”
The front door of the house burst open with a bang. Saul looked through the kitchen doorway as the flock of crows flew into the room, filling the kitchen with the rustling of wings and the sound of their harsh cawing. Saul pushed Anna Lee aside and raised his arms to shield his head and face. The birds circled about Saul’s head, just as they had done in the orchard.
Anna Lee landed hard, splitting her lip and bruising her cheek. She turned her head away from the commotion of feathers. She saw a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat standing in the doorway, framed by the moonlight spilling through the open door. He crossed the entryway and stepped into the kitchen, his face hidden by the shadow cast by his hat. The crows swooped at Saul once more, then flew past the stranger in the doorway and out of the house.
Saul lowered his arms and eyed the man in the doorway. There was something familiar about him.
“Listen, Mister,” Saul called, wagging a fat finger at the stranger. “None of this concerns you.” Saul tried to see under the hat, but the man’s face was hidden. All except for one unblinking, brilliant blue eye. “The Reverend and I were just ---”
Without finishing, Saul lowered his shoulder and plowed over the stranger. Scrambling to his feet, Saul sprinted out of the house and into the night. The man in the hat got to his feet and took a long look at the family on the floor. He hesitated a moment, as if wrestling with some decision, the turned and ran from the house, pursuing Saul into the darkness.
Saul ran across the field, only slowing enough to grab the pickaxe that he had left on the edge of the orchard, and up the next hill. He could hear the stranger behind him, closing the distance. No use keepin’ this up, Saul thought, Ain’t as young as I used to be. He stepped to the side of the path and ducked behind a good-sized tr
ee, listening to the footsteps growing louder. Raising his pickaxe, Saul waited for the stranger.
Johnny made his way up the hill, their hill, looking for any sign of Mr. Samuels. Johnny had recognized him the moment he saw the fraud standing in the Reverend’s kitchen, and found that he wasn’t the least bit surprised. It all seemed to fit with the Devil’s plan. Johnny slowed his pace, looking up the path. He was sure that he had seen Mr. Samuels head up this way, but he seemed to have disappeared.
With a bloodcurdling scream, Saul sprang out from behind the tree and swung the pickaxe at the stranger’s head. The point connected, but instead of the soft THUNK that Saul had expected, a loud CLANG rang out through the night. The stranger flew backward, his hat flew to the side. The shock of the blow traveled up the pickaxe’s handle, jarring Saul’s arms and causing him to drop the tool. He rubbed his throbbing arms, confident in the fact that no matter how much they hurt, the stranger had received the worst of the blow.
“I told you this wasn’t any of your business!” Saul spat out. He walked over to the body lying motionless on the ground, still rubbing his arms. He drew back his foot and kicked at the body, but the man’s gloved hand shot out and caught Saul by the foot, tripping him and toppling him over.
The man had been playing possum, but how? He should have been dead after a blow like that.
Using his still stinging hands, Saul scooted himself away from the man’s grasp, his rear dragging a furrow in the ground. The stranger got to his feet and stared down at Saul, his unnatural blue eye sparkling in the light of the full moon. The moonlight shone off of the brass plate that covered the stranger’s head and one cheek, in the same place that the boy ---
“You,” Saul snarled, recognizing the boy.
“That’s right,” Johnny said. “Me.”
“I left you for dead!”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
Saul continued to scramble backward on his rump until his hands felt the ground drop away behind him. He had reached the edge of the hill, where Johnny and Anna Lee liked to sit facing the setting sun. Looking over his shoulder, Saul saw that the drop from the hill to the ground below was a good fifty feet or more. He had run out of room to scoot.
“What are you goin’ to do to me?”
A wave of unreality washed over Johnny. His head swam and his vision blurred. He dropped his eyes and turned his head away from the fat man cowering before him.
Must’ve hit me harder than I thought.
Something lay in the grass, gleaming in the moonlight. Johnny forced his eyes to focus until the details sharpened and he was able to make out the head of the shovel. Still a bit unsteady, Johnny bent over and grabbed the shovel by its wooden handle.
I think he meant to take your head off with that. The voice that spoke in Johnny’s head was familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. It sure wasn’t Grandpa’s voice. Too bad for him that you already lost it, huh?
Johnny’s free hand went to his face, the fingers tracing the seam where the metal plate met flesh. He turned to face Mr. Samuels once more, but Saul was no longer there. The man in the shoddy clothes and muddy ass was about the same size as Mr. Samuels, but the face no longer had the loose skin and greasy jowls that Johnny had recognized the moment he stepped into the Henderson’s house. No, this face was hairy and wolfish. A grin split the hungry face, showing a mouth that held entirely too many teeth.
“Come on!” Saul’s voice shouted from Mr. Scratch’s face. The voice was panicked and close to hysteria, but the face looked amused. “I asked you a question. What are you goin’ to do to me?”
Johnny adjusted the shovel in his hand. The weight of it felt good in his hand. Solid. It felt real, and wasn’t something real all that he had ever wanted?
And he tried to take it from you, didn’t he?
The voice was silky and convincing. Johnny was no longer sure whether it was talking about Mr. Samuels or Mr. Scratch. Did it matter? Weren’t they one in the same?
That’s right, the voice purred as Johnny gripped the shovel with both hands and raised it over his head. The man on the ground tried to scoot back, but only managed to knock loose the scree at the edge of the hill and send it tumbling over the side. There was nowhere for him to go.
The man with Saul’s body and Scratch’s head raised his hands and started to whimper and plead, but Johnny didn’t hear him. For a brief moment, all the world opened before him. All that ever was, all that ever could have been, all the decisions that he had ever made in the past and all the possibilities of the future were laid out before him. Johnny felt the weight of each decision pressing down on him, focused in this one moment.
Go on, the voice in his head crooned. Do it.
Saul stared in horror as flames rose behind the boy’s bright blue eye. The boy’s lips parted in a sinister smile. How could he have been so wrong about this boy? He wasn’t soft at all. This boy was a predator.
For just a moment, the look on the boy’s face softened. He hesitated, then lowered the shovel. The flame in the boy’s eye flared once more, then died. It was a brilliant blue sapphire once again.
“I ain’t gonna do nothin’,” Johnny said, tossing the shovel over the edge of the cliff. The illusion passed. The man quivering at his feet was wholly Mr. Samuels once again. “Get your stuff and go home.”
Saul was stunned into silence. He watched in disbelief while Johnny turned and began to descend the hill, heading back toward the farmhouse. The boy bent to pick up his hat and placed it back on his bald, bronze dome of a head.
Saul stood and brushed the dirt from his pants, feeling his face flush with anger. He had never been played for a fool before, but this had been one terrible night. First, he had been duped with the phony map and now the boy had made a fool of him. His hand passed over something hard in his front pocket. Saul stuck his hand in and pulled out the knife that he had used to cut the ropes that had tied up the Reverend and his wife. He couldn’t remember putting it there, but was glad that he had. The moonlight glinted off of the blade. Saul turned it over in front of his eyes, hypnotized.
“Nothin’?” Saul snarled under his breath. As if in a dream, he started down the hill after Johnny, picking up speed. He didn’t have a plan, per se, only driven forward by the thought of plunging the blade into the boy’s back.
Saul checked, then stopped. All around him, the night erupted with a wild clicking, as though a swarm of invisible locusts were all around them. He twisted his head from side to side, trying to find the source of the maddening noise, but there was nothing to be seen.
Johnny stopped at the foot of the hill and looked around. He caught glimpses of moonlight reflecting off of obsidian claws. Among the trees and bushes to the side of the footpath, imps clambered and clawed their way up the hill, running from some unseen pursuer.
Then he saw them. A legion of ghost soldiers stormed the hill, whooping, hollering, and chasing the imps into the night. Johnny tipped his hat as they passed, charging their way up the hill.
Saul never saw the ghosts. What looked like a cadre of jet black rats poured out of the undergrowth and onto the path, their eyes burning like a million embers. Saul started to back away, but the rats came on, their tongues clicking their mad chorus. In his terror Saul turned, dropping the knife, and fled up the hill, trying to outpace the rats that were closing in behind him. He ran as fast as he could, certain that somehow the boy had set these demonic rats upon him.
He forgot about the cliff until it was too late.
The front door was, but Johnny hesitated on the stoop. He took a deep breath, held it a moment, then exhaled. This was it. Everything he had done, everything that he had suffered through and become because of that suffering, was all for this. Johnny entered the house without knocking. He stepped into the kitchen doorway, where Anna Lee was busy working at the knots in the ropes that bound
her father. Irma was already untied and sat at the table, her head in her hands. The Irishwoman looked up and started to speak when she saw him standing in the doorway. From the floor, the Reverend saw the color rise in his wife’s face and turned to follow her gaze.
“I don’t know who you are,” the Reverend said. Anna Lee faced the stranger while she worked at untying her father. “But I’m glad you came when you did. Thank you.”
“Where is that bastard?” Irma bellowed.
“Gone.”
Anna Lee recognized the voice, but not the shape of the man in the doorway. She rose to her feet, leaving her father behind. “Johnny?”
Johnny looked down at the kitchen floor. Anna Lee crossed the room and lifted the brim of his hat. She tried to get a look at him, but Johnny turned from her, hiding the right side of his face.
“What is it?” Anna Lee asked.
“I’m… different.”
“Let me see.”
Johnny removed his hat and turned to face her. Anna Lee reached out and ran her hand over the plate in his head and down his right cheek. Tears spilled from her eyes and ran down her bruised cheek. Johnny took a step back and unbuttoned his shirt. She traced the scar on his chest with the tips of her fingers. Johnny slid the shirt off of his shoulder, exposing the flesh where the golden arm was stitched to him. He slipped off his left glove and Anna Lee took his golden hand in hers.
“Anythin’ else?”
Johnny looked down at his pants.
“Oh!” Anna Lee gasped.
“Huh? Oh,” Johnny blushed, “not that.” He rolled up his pant legs, revealing the silver beneath.
Anna Lee looked Johnny up and down, head to toe. “You’re right,” she whispered, “you have changed. And it’s beautiful.”